


#3

by AceOnMain (Sangrylah)



Series: Itachi's Daycare For Maladjusted Children [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Itachi is doing his best, references to Canon typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27164458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangrylah/pseuds/AceOnMain
Summary: Itachi talks to someone who isn't a kid.Reading of the first works in the series recommended for understanding.
Series: Itachi's Daycare For Maladjusted Children [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965778
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	#3

So, uh.

He hasn’t really thought it through but he’s doing rather well, right?

Right?

He’s staying in the forest, capitalizing on their advance the best he can – which is: very badly and insufficiently with small kids who need to sleep and eat more often and regularly that the situation recommends. Itachi dutifully feeds them only slightly charred fish and squirrel, waters them with suiton and strategically sticks them in trees to sleep. They complain a bit when he wakes them up in the middle of the night but Sasuke intuitively seems to get that this isn’t your regular camping trip and Naruto knows why they are running – from whom.

So: kids fed and watered; no one injured; no one captured. Yes. He is doing alright. He is ANBU; he knows how to improvise. Itachi tentatively allows himself to relax a little in his own tree and slowly stretches out his neck. It’s taking a toll on him, keeping watch at night and then ferrying and caring for two young children, but it’s almost over. They are only a day away from the border and soon will be out of Fire Country. Konoha won’t be able to officially send recovery teams without disclosing that they lost two of their prized Uchiha clan and their jinchūriki, which she cannot afford to do. It doesn’t mean that  _no_ recovery team will be sent; just that they will be fewer and slower. Itachi will take it.

His eyes want to close, and his body wants to sleep; he burns a little portion of chakra through his system to chase the sleepiness. He can’t sleep – not yet. He must hold a while longer yet; they still are a day out and -

“You should sleep.”

_There._

Itachi grits his teeth. He suspected, of course, but having the confirmation doesn’t lift his spirits. Hound. Impervious to genjutsu thanks to his own sharingan, as fast as Itachi and stronger, older. More experienced. It makes sense to send his team – and him – to pursue Itachi. It won’t be an easy fight.

“Please don’t make me kill you.”

“You never beat me in a fight, kid.”

“That was training.” Routine. Maintenance. Friendly.

“And this?”

Everything. Life-giving. Life-ending. These children will not be quieted. “Different.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m not giving them back.” He’s not, not ever, not if the end-result is seeing them floating down the river with blood where their eyes should be and death where gentleness used to lie. No. Never.

“I know.”

That doesn’t mean he won’t have to fight for it. “Why are you here, Hound-taichou?”

Hound slips a hand in one of his pouches. Itachi does his best to not thrust a kunai through his throat.

“You forgot this.” _This_ being something shapeless and violently green.

Itachi takes it. It’s soft, with hard round shapes inside. It’s a smiling frog.

“Minato-sensei bought it for Naruto.”

Ah. Itachi traces the arch of the smile with a finger. “Thank you.”

Hound doesn’t answer and very obviously refocuses on the children.

The silence stretches. Itachi covertly watches Konoha’s best killer watch the children and burns a little more chakra to stay awake.

“Why did you do it?” Hound asks suddenly.

There are many reasons, all very valid, but main of all: “I couldn’t do it.”

Admitting it feels like failing, like freedom. Like a shackle around his lungs squeezing too tight and the crumbling.

“I couldn’t kill them all.”

Itachi breathes in deeply, so deep his lungs ache with it. It feels so good to say it, after all the lies and the secrecy. Finally – truth. At least part of it. Hound is smart enough and high level enough to put the pieces together. He is _loyal_ enough. Itachi did his job. It’s not his business anymore. He’s done. He’s free.

He’s tired.

“And Naruto?”

Itachi ponders the right answer. No quiet children. A young boy sitting on a swing after everyone left. A dirty shirt and dirty pants. Blank eyes. Causes, all of them. But most of all, and truthfully:

“There was no one to stop me.”

No one looking. No one watching. No one _caring._

_Ever._

“I see.”

Itachi supposes Hound does. The jinchūriki situation is Konoha’s worst kept secret. There is a reason why that child was silent and alone until Itachi decided that it was unacceptable.

Itachi, who is a stranger to Naruto. Until a week ago, Naruto and he had never spoken to each other. Itachi has no tie to Naruto himself, nor to his parents. Itachi never met the Yondaime, never even laid eyes on him. But Hound did. Hound was the Fourth’s pupil. Everyone knows that the Yellow Flash trained him personally, fed him, had him sleep in his home, and overall doted on him like on a little brother.

But Naruto was alone and silent before Itachi snatched him.

Itachi wants to ask why Hound _didn’t_ , why he let his sensei’s child alone and unloved, _why_ _WHY_ but he has never been cruel. Hound came for them. He brought a precious possession of Naruto, who undoubtedly only has very few of them. He rung a warning with his mere presence. Itachi is alive, unhurt. Hound is doing his best, trying to find his truth between all the rules coiled around him, just like Itachi did.

Not everyone can be nukenin. Itachi isn’t convinced he can, but he’ll try. He has to.

Hound and Itachi both have always been men of few words, so they stop talking. A forest is never quiet, but it is calm and Itachi breathes it in. It feels familiar, hiding in the trees with Hound-taichou. The space of a heartbeat, it feels like nothing changed.

Stopping was a calculated risk. Firstly, the boys need exercise, if only to be able to keep still and quiet while Itachi heaves them across the country. Secondly, hindered by his charges, Itachi did not make good time at all; he’d known the hunting team had been on their heels. Itachi did not want to risk a fight at the border and so he stopped. He picked this spot for defensibility and for the thickness of the foliage cover. He doesn’t want to fight his colleagues, fellow shinobi trying their best to protect the village and her interests, but he will. Would have. The current situation is better than he’s hoped: no one to fight, no one to kill. A pause, instead of a battle. A memory.

A goodbye.

“Sleep. I’ll wake you.”

Itachi blinks slowly at Hound’s profile. Sleeping? Hunted, the kids free to roam and get in trouble. Sleeping? Hiding in a tree, his fellow ANBU keeping watch.

Sleeping. Alright.

Sleeping in a tree, watched over by his fellow ANBU, for the last time.

Sleep, then food, then the border. And then… improvisation. He can do this. He is ANBU; they’re good at improvisation.

Itachi sleeps. 

Hound leaves without saying a word; merely nods and shushins away.

Itachi truly is alone now. It hurts more than he expected. 


End file.
